Getting Windows 7



  •  So I'm getting a brand new PC and I figured it was about time to move to Windows 7. I did my research and figured I'll go for the Pro edition which as it turns out goes for around 300 euros.

     

    Fuck.

     

    Did you guys pay that?



  • Why do you need the Pro edition? What's wrong with Home Premium?



  • @ekolis said:

    Why do you need the Pro edition?
    Windows Xp mode?



  • @DOA said:

    Did you guys pay that?

    I know like 30 MS employees, so I pay MS Company Store rates... IIRC, it was $30 for Windows 7 Ultimate.

    I got 3 licenses, but I think all 3 are in-use... and you'd need a disk anyway.

    Edit: Wait a minute, WTF? Where are you buying a computer that isn't willing to give you OEM rates on Windows 7? Did you mean to say you're BUILDING a computer?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I pay MS Company Store rates... IIRC, it was $30 for Windows 7 Ultimate
    Die.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Did you mean to say you're BUILDING a computer?
    Yes.

    Incidentally I can get the DSP version which is half the price, but from what I'm told it wont let you install again if you get a new motherboard.



  • @DOA said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    Did you mean to say you're BUILDING a computer?
    Yes.

    The Windows OEM rules (used to; no guarantee this trick still works) play it very loose about what hardware it was bundled with. So you could, for example, buy a $2 obsolete network card, and package an OEM version of Windows with it... I knew a guy a few years ago who had a couple of vendors who pulled this trick. Point is, you might be able to still get OEM rates if you find the right store.

    One time the obsolete hardware the vendor sent was so obsolete, we couldn't even figure out what it was meant to do originally-- it was an ISA card, with some kind of DB connector on the end that wasn't DB-9 or DB-25. It was definitely manufactured and not custom-made, but search me what it was for. Wish I had a picture of it.



  • I've always just bought OEM copies myself. I paid about $140 last time I bought Windows 7 Pro.



  • @DOA said:

    around 300 euros
    I think that's the problem.

    Win 7 Pro $139 (which is €97.74 at current exchange rate).  Over the years I have noticed that U.S. companies sometimes charge higher prices for their products outside of the U.S.,  particulary in Europe.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Win 7 Pro $139 (which is €97.74 at current exchange rate).
    That's OEM. Apparently it "cannot be transferred to another computer once it is installed". Judging from my experience with XP, my copy will go through several machines before it reaches its end-of-life, so I'm looking at the retail version.

    Anyway so far I've found it on Amazon for €195 including shipping. Still ridiculously overpriced, but better than what the bastards around here are asking for it.

    I swear after this I'm going to torrent every piece of microsoft software I can find just to seed it.



  • @DOA said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    Win 7 Pro $139 (which is €97.74 at current exchange rate).
    That's OEM. Apparently it "cannot be transferred to another computer once it is installed". Judging from my experience with XP, my copy will go through several machines before it reaches its end-of-life, so I'm looking at the retail version.

    Anyway so far I've found it on Amazon for €195 including shipping. Still ridiculously overpriced, but better than what the bastards around here are asking for it.

    I swear after this I'm going to torrent every piece of microsoft software I can find just to seed it.

    You could just buy a computer. Who builds anymore? Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Who builds anymore?
     

    I like to.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.

    But for the exact same money.

     

     

    Upgrade versions of Windows are cheaper and are, in fact, full versions.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    You could just buy a computer. Who builds anymore? Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.
    I'm very picky about my PCs. They need to powerful, quiet and robust and to do that you really need to start from scratch.



  • @DOA said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    You could just buy a computer. Who builds anymore? Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.
    I'm very picky about my PCs. They need to powerful, quiet and robust and to do that you really need to start from scratch.

    My modified Dell is just as powerful, quiet, and robust as any computer I've built, cost the same, and I was done in a fraction of the time. As an added bonus, I have warranty coverage of most of the important bits, and when I'm done with it I can yank out the video card and PSU and give the stock Dell to a buddy. (Which is what I did with the last one.)

    Look, do what you like, but don't use bullshit arguments on me, because I have a very well-developed bullshit detector. Hell, what does "powerful" even matter anymore? My computer has 4 cores and 6 GB of RAM. It's never *never* used more than 30% CPU power doing something I care about in real-time, and it's *never* even approached 4 GB of RAM usage, unless you count cache. That's while running World of Warcraft, Zune playing a MP4, all my background shit, all at the same time. (Sure, it rips DVDs to MP4 quicker, but who cares? I usually do that overnight anyway, so it doesn't matter if it uses 1 hour or 8.)



  • My company paid for that or most likely our clients did. Windows 7 is the OS of choice for several clients, but our development is deployed on linux based servers. The browsers are all run in Win 7.

    A lot of people are also engaged in .NET activity. That require windows 7 for latest and greatest features.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @DOA said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    You could just buy a computer. Who builds anymore? Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.
    I'm very picky about my PCs. They need to powerful, quiet and robust and to do that you really need to start from scratch.

    My modified Dell is just as powerful, quiet, and robust as any computer I've built, cost the same, and I was done in a fraction of the time. As an added bonus, I have warranty coverage of most of the important bits, *and* when I'm done with it I can yank out the video card and PSU and give the stock Dell to a buddy. (Which is what I did with the last one.)

    Look, do what you like, but don't use bullshit arguments on me, because I have a very well-developed bullshit detector. Hell, what does "powerful" even matter anymore? My computer has 4 cores and 6 GB of RAM. It's never *never* used more than 30% CPU power doing something I care about in real-time, and it's *never* even approached 4 GB of RAM usage, unless you count cache. That's while running World of Warcraft, Zune playing a MP4, all my background shit, all at the same time. (Sure, it rips DVDs to MP4 quicker, but who cares? I usually do that overnight anyway, so it doesn't matter if it uses 1 hour or 8.)

    Well, to each its own, I like to build my PCs for the pleasure of doing so, is a hobby, to find the perfect balance for me and that is sometimes difficult without some customization



  • @DOA said:

    I'm very picky about my PCs. They need to powerful, quiet and robust and to do that you really need to start from scratch.
    This is a very common attitude among people who have been involved with computers for a long time.  I know because I used to be the same way.  I was always very picky and building my own computers was the only way to get all the power and features that I wanted.  But things have changed in the last few years.  The last computer I built was in June 2007 and it's still powerful enough for anything I need to do today.  But I don't even use it any more because I recently bought a laptop that's even better and was insanely cheap, considering the specs.  There might be a few special situations where you need to build rather than buy,  but those situations are pretty rare now.

     

    mod:  dude, stop posting from a Mac. –dh



  • I actually bought a new computer and recieved it today. I use a seller called alternate, they have this pc builder system that lets you create your custom PC and then you can opt that they put it together. Best of both worlds if you ask me. 



  • @stratos said:

    they put it together
     

    But but... the unboxing! The tinkering!



  • @El_Heffe said:

    mod:  dude, stop posting from a Mac. –dh
    WTF?

    I don't get it.  I've never owned a  <FONT color=#000000><FONT face="courier new,courier" size=4>Mac</FONT></FONT>.

    --Edit: I like mac only if its covered in cheese - Galgorah



  • @El_Heffe said:

    I don't get it.  I've never owned a  <font color="#000000"><font face="courier new,courier" size="4">Mac</font></font>.
     

    Liar! How do you explain all those Apple styles?



  • @dhromed said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    I don't get it.  I've never owned a  <font color="#000000"><font size="4" face="courier new,courier">Mac</font></font>.
     

    Liar! How do you explain all those Apple styles?

    I have absoluely no idea what you are talking about.

     

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    I have absoluely no idea what you are talking about.
     

    It's unfortunate that I deleted all of it. :\

    In any case,  the post in question contained about three metric miles of style attributes in span tags, prefixed with apple-something. It looked like all that extraneous word-html, but a bit cleaner.

    So, maybe you're using some sort of tool to write your post and then paste it into CS, safeguarding it for CS's quirks?



  •  @dhromed said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    I have absoluely no idea what you are talking about.
     

    It's unfortunate that I deleted all of it. :\

    In any case,  the post in question contained about three metric miles of style attributes in span tags, prefixed with apple-something. It looked like all that extraneous word-html, but a bit cleaner.

    So, maybe you're using some sort of tool to write your post and then paste it into CS, safeguarding it for CS's quirks?

    I don't know what to tell you.  I've never owned a Mac or anything else made by Apple.   I typed my post directly into the editor that's used here.

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    I have absoluely no idea what you are talking about.
     

    It's unfortunate that I deleted all of it. :\

    In any case,  the post in question contained about three metric miles of style attributes in span tags, prefixed with apple-something. It looked like all that extraneous word-html, but a bit cleaner.

    So, maybe you're using some sort of tool to write your post and then paste it into CS, safeguarding it for CS's quirks?

     

    CS auto-transfers all posted comments directly to the iPods of specially seleted mods, where they listen to a text-to-speech of it. They then either nod sagely and approvingly, or shake their heads violently and froth. The iPod's accelerometer detects the motion, and either approves the post or rejects it. I'm pretty sure a new shiny, awesome new firmware just got pushed to iPods, and they must have changed everything by enhancing moderated posts with sleek style tags.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    CS auto-transfers all posted comments directly to the iPods of specially seleted mods, where they listen to a text-to-speech of it. They then either nod sagely and approvingly, or shake their heads violently and froth. The iPod's accelerometer detects the motion, and either approves the post or rejects it. I'm pretty sure a new shiny, awesome new firmware just got pushed to iPods, and they must have changed everything by enhancing moderated posts with sleek style tags.
    <font face="comic sans ms,sand">That actually make mores sense than the way Community Server really works.</font>

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Who builds anymore?
     

    I like to.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Spent $500 on a Dell, shove in a new PSU and video card, and you're done in a fraction of the time.

    But for the exact same money.

    Upgrade versions of Windows are cheaper and are, in fact, full versions.

    I 'm constantly changing the hardware in my machine.  I built it from scratch last year to the tune of $5000 and since I've probably spent about $3000 adding on to it.  It's an expensive hobby.  but with 24gb of triple channel ddr3 running at 2200 I have absolutely no problem with video editing.   However ya swapping shit does mean that it sucks if you have an oem version.  I can also overclock my system from my phone,,,



  • @galgorah said:

    I 'm constantly changing the hardware in my machine.  I built it from scratch last year to the tune of $5000 and since I've probably spent about $3000 adding on to it.  It's an expensive hobby.  but with 24gb of triple channel ddr3 running at 2200 I have absolutely no problem with video editing.   However ya swapping shit does mean that it sucks if you have an oem version.  I can also overclock my system from my phone,,,

    So you have a Asus RoG expensive mobo right?



  • @serguey123 said:

    @galgorah said:

    I 'm constantly changing the hardware in my machine.  I built it from scratch last year to the tune of $5000 and since I've probably spent about $3000 adding on to it.  It's an expensive hobby.  but with 24gb of triple channel ddr3 running at 2200 I have absolutely no problem with video editing.   However ya swapping shit does mean that it sucks if you have an oem version.  I can also overclock my system from my phone,,,

    So you have a Asus RoG expensive mobo right?

    Correct.  I have the ROG Rampage Extreme III. I tend to upgrade my mobo and memory each year; Overkill I know. 


  • @galgorah said:

    Correct.  I have the ROG Rampage Extreme III. I tend to upgrade my mobo and memory each year; Overkill I know. 

    A new version of that mobo is up for sale, go buy it

    For me I'm ok with the evga sli3 and remain to be ok until Intel makes a greater platform and no I don't think that P67 or H67 or Z68 are good enough.  I'll keep my 1366 mobo until then



  • @galgorah said:

    @serguey123 said:

    @galgorah said:

    I 'm constantly changing the hardware in my machine.  I built it from scratch last year to the tune of $5000 and since I've probably spent about $3000 adding on to it.  It's an expensive hobby.  but with 24gb of triple channel ddr3 running at 2200 I have absolutely no problem with video editing.   However ya swapping shit does mean that it sucks if you have an oem version.  I can also overclock my system from my phone,,,

    So you have a Asus RoG expensive mobo right?

    Correct.  I have the ROG Rampage Extreme III. I tend to upgrade my mobo and memory each year; Overkill I know. 

    Yeah, I usually put 4 grand in a barrel each year and burn it. I find it gives the same effect in less time.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @galgorah said:

    @serguey123 said:

    @galgorah said:

    I 'm constantly changing the hardware in my machine.  I built it from scratch last year to the tune of $5000 and since I've probably spent about $3000 adding on to it.  It's an expensive hobby.  but with 24gb of triple channel ddr3 running at 2200 I have absolutely no problem with video editing.   However ya swapping shit does mean that it sucks if you have an oem version.  I can also overclock my system from my phone,,,

    So you have a Asus RoG expensive mobo right?

    Correct.  I have the ROG Rampage Extreme III. I tend to upgrade my mobo and memory each year; Overkill I know. 
    Yeah, I usually put 4 grand in a barrel each year and burn it. I find it gives the same effect in less time.

    Sorry but I disagree, can you brag about that?  Can you show up to your friend? Or feel like you are a bigshot?  I think not.

    The closest you can go is filming yourself and then using SSDS to replay that moment for your friends and family and it is not the same.  There is nothing like the bling and superflous shit


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @serguey123 said:

    There is nothing like the bling and superflous shit.

    I guess not. But an annual super expensive mobo seems more superfluous than bling. Do you have super doubleplusgood speaker wires, too?



  • @serguey123 said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @galgorah said:

    @serguey123 said:

    So you have a Asus RoG expensive mobo right?

    Correct.  I have the ROG Rampage Extreme III. I tend to upgrade my mobo and memory each year; Overkill I know. 
    Yeah, I usually put 4 grand in a barrel each year and burn it. I find it gives the same effect in less time.

    Sorry but I disagree, can you brag about that?  Can you show up to your friend? Or feel like you are a bigshot?  I think not.

    The closest you can go is filming yourself and then using SSDS to replay that moment for your friends and family and it is not the same. 

    Well if you insist on only doing it the cheap-ass budget way, what do you expect? This is how you do it.



  • To ask Galgorah an honest question: while you're doing your video editing on your 24GB of RAM, do you ever open up Task Manager and see how many resources your computer is using?

    Does it even approach 50%?

    Because my psuedo-4-core (2 hyperthreaded cores, figure that one out) + 8GB machine, I can't for the life of me figure out what to do to get it at, or even near 100% resource usage. Video encoding with Handbrake will peg the CPU at 100%, but it only uses a few MB of RAM. And the damned thing will simultaneously run World of Warcraft, Blood Bowl, Handbrake doing an encoding, and Zune playing a 1080p MP4, and it'll still be responsive as shit, and only using half the damned RAM. And this computer cost like $800, a year ago. (All I did is swap out the PSU and video card. And the only reason I swapped out the PSU is because my video card required that annoying 6-pin connector.)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    To ask Galgorah an honest question: while you're doing your video editing on your 24GB of RAM, do you ever open up Task Manager and see how many resources your computer is using?

    Does it even approach 50%?

    Because my psuedo-4-core (2 hyperthreaded cores, figure that one out) + 8GB machine, I can't for the life of me figure out what to do to get it at, or even near 100% resource usage. Video encoding with Handbrake will peg the CPU at 100%, but it only uses a few MB of RAM. And the damned thing will simultaneously run World of Warcraft, Blood Bowl, Handbrake doing an encoding, and Zune playing a 1080p MP4, and it'll still be responsive as shit, and only using half the damned RAM. And this computer cost like $800, a year ago. (All I did is swap out the PSU and video card. And the only reason I swapped out the PSU is because my video card required that annoying 6-pin connector.)

    Dude, do not try to rationalize the bling



  • @blakeyrat said:

    To ask Galgorah an honest question: while you're doing your video editing on your 24GB of RAM, do you ever open up Task Manager and see how many resources your computer is using?

    Does it even approach 50%?

    I do a lot of batch editing of videos and photos simultaneously.  I also tend to have several instances of visual studio, multiple instances of sql server and a game or two all running simultaneously.  I've hit 16gb of use before.  Adobe products can rape your memory.


  • @galgorah said:

    Adobe products

    Well, there's your problem.



  • When baking 7+ million polygon meshes to the realtime 1-3k models, I quite often see all four cores firing at 100% with 3-4gb RAM use by Max alone. Acceleration structures get heavy.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @galgorah said:
    Adobe products
    Well, there's your problem.

    The exorbitant increase in vomited resources caused by adobe products is well worth it considering the tools.  It cuts down on my over workflow.  In the meantime I can just play crysis 2 or black ops or watch a terrible movie


  • @galgorah said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    @galgorah said:
    Adobe products
    Well, there's your problem.

    The exorbitant increase in vomited resources caused by adobe products is well worth it considering the tools.  It cuts down on my over workflow.  In the meantime I can just play crysis 2 or black ops or watch a terrible movie

    I felt a lot better about Adobe before they started pissing all over their own apps and turning them into shit.

    Now I think most designers just use them out of habit... because, seriously, the tools are fucking AWFUL now. Especially Flash. (And hell, Flash 8 wasn't that good to start with.)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    To ask Galgorah an honest question: while you're doing your video editing on your 24GB of RAM, do you ever open up Task Manager and see how many resources your computer is using?

    Does it even approach 50%?

    Because my psuedo-4-core (2 hyperthreaded cores, figure that one out) + 8GB machine, I can't for the life of me figure out what to do to get it at, or even near 100% resource usage. Video encoding with Handbrake will peg the CPU at 100%, but it only uses a few MB of RAM. And the damned thing will simultaneously run World of Warcraft, Blood Bowl, Handbrake doing an encoding, and Zune playing a 1080p MP4, and it'll still be responsive as shit, and only using half the damned RAM. And this computer cost like $800, a year ago. (All I did is swap out the PSU and video card. And the only reason I swapped out the PSU is because my video card required that annoying 6-pin connector.)

    Try heavy duty xsl processing with java and that will start eating your memory like hungry children in Dhanbad eating bread packets thrown to them by Army helicopters.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    To ask Galgorah an honest question: while you're doing your video editing on your 24GB of RAM, do you ever open up Task Manager and see how many resources your computer is using?

    We do a lot of Final Cut at work, so upgraded the Mac Pro to 12GB of RAM, only to find it never using more than 2GB. Yes Final Cut Pro was still 32 bit. :-( I think Final Cut Pro X fixes this though...



  • @Nagesh said:

    Try heavy duty xsl processing with java and that will start eating your memory
     

     

    Solution: take java out of that equation. Or find a less crap XML/XSL parser library.

     




  • @BC_Programmer said:

    Solution: take java out of that equation. Or find a less crap XML/XSL parser library.

    Or don't use XML or XSL in the first place.



  •  Good point. Particularly since describing XML/XSL processing as "heavy duty" means that it's probably being used for something it wasn't intended for, such as practical usage.



  • @mott555 said:

    I've always just bought OEM copies myself. I paid about $140 last time I bought Windows 7 Pro.

    Serious question! Where you buying OEM copies from? Is this USofA or Europe?


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